La Sportiva Bushido III - Women's Review

With multidirectional 3.8 mm lugs, a 7 mm heel-to-toe drop, and an incredibly beefy toecap, this is one of our go-to trail shoes for seriously sloppy and challenging terrain.

Comfort and Fit

We love this shoe and am obsessed with its incredible updates. The updated construction of the Bushido III makes it significantly more comfortable than anticipated.

The slightly higher forefoot stack adds extra underfoot cushion. This helps make the Bushido more suitable for a wider variety of runners. Even the standard fit is ever so slightly wider, further adding to its ability to accommodate different anatomies. The upper textiles are soft to the touch, and the plush tongue helps prevent the lockdown from becoming painful as your feet swell with movement. The breathability of the upper helps make the Bushido suitable for summer runs at altitude.

The heel collar is standard and comfortably tapered, adding to this shoe's overall comfort. La Sportiva knocked it out of the park with these comfort updates, taking the Bushido III from a sensitive and rugged shoe to a sensitive, rugged, comfortable powerhouse that is ready to kick it with you on trails for a few hundred miles.

The one caveat in this metric is the fit. We are delighted by the wider offerings from La Sportiva, but they are a European company and thus follow European sizing. Their website provides an easy-to-use size chart to help you sort out your size, but also notes that buying a half size up is a smart choice. The manufacturer also notes that they use European half sizes, which include more sizes than American half sizes. We ordered half a US size up from our usual sizing and found it just right in the length — and could be sized up even a tiny bit more if you like extra room.

Stability

The Bushido stands in a league of its own when it comes to stability. It won't be the shoe to truly correct overpronation (not many are), but if you want a seriously stable shoe that lets you feel in control, we can't recommend the Bushido III enough.

The security of the heel cup and traction-induced braking system inspires confidence on slick and technical terrain. The strength of the lateral edges helps keep your feet where they need to be, and the midfoot lock and taper feel secure, even without over-tightening the laces. Though average, the 7mm drop feels stable and manages to feel nearly impervious to ankle rolling, making this a great shoe for runners who have that tendency. To make things even sweeter, La Sportiva released the Bushido III with wide options available. This means that the wider-footed runners can enjoy the toebox space for added stability and comfort.

Traction

The Bushido III is an alpine-ready shoe thanks to its fantastic traction. La Sportiva redesigned the traction pattern on the bottom of the Bushido with this iteration, and we found it to be near-perfect, based on our battery of tests.

The outsole is comprised of vegan Bi-Compound FriXion XT 2.0 rubber, which provides a beautiful combination of bite and grip. The 3.8 mm lugs are angled and dispersed so you can control your directional changes, accelerations, and hard stops.

The U-shaped lugs are precisely placed to create security across rock scrambles, loose terrain, and steep descents. During testing, we found that we could really feel the grip of these shoes across granite faces, which is incredibly uncommon in the world of trail shoes. The strong traction of the updated Bushido combines with its inherent stability to create a ready-for-anything kind of trail companion.

Foot Protection

One of the things we love most about the La Sportiva Bushido III is that it packs a lot of protection into a small, nimble package.

The forefoot of the Bushido features a compressed EVA rock plate for underfoot protection, providing protection without compromising sensitivity. The slight extra outsole width protects you from small hazards on the trail.

The heel stack height of the Bushido is slightly below average, but that compressed EVA rock plate makes up for that, resulting in above-average foot protection overall.

The toe cap is rugged and positioned well for deflecting rocks and stumps you accidentally kick. The upper air mesh and ripstop overlays are soft to the touch and do a great job of deflecting dirt as you run. Small splashes are deflected well, but this is not a waterproof shoe, so crashing through a creek will leave you with wet feet. Previously, the Bushido had a GTX (Gore-Tex, i.e., waterproof) version, but we were unable to find that this iteration followed suit.

Weight

This iteration of the Bushido weighs slightly more than the past version. Weighing in at 9.11 ounces for a women's size 6.5, it is nearly an ounce more to work with underfoot.

This bit of extra weight is worth it to us because of the upgraded comfort features the Bushido III offers. With such strong traction and comfort in the necessary places, a 9-ounce trail shoe is well within the boundary of “normal” for most trail runners.

Should You Buy the La Sportiva Bushido III?

If we had to answer this question in one word, our testers would shout a resounding “Yes!” While we all have our personal preferences when it comes to our running shoes, the performance of the Bushido III is high. This is a shoe that demonstrates capability on nearly all terrain types. Runners looking for a plush ride might not enjoy the sensitivity of the Bushido, so that is something to keep in mind. Runners seeking a carbon-plated speed demon may find the traditional approach of the Bushido to be a bit basic, though the Bushido is perfectly capable of accompanying you at higher speeds. The Bushido rides like the trail shoe we've always dreamed of, and we think this shoe will have the alpine athlete inside of you jumping for joy.

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